Surprised by Jesus

For new readers: The Compass is a newsletter on spiritual formation, and "The Dust of the Rabbi" is one of its recurring series. In the ancient world, a rabbi’s most devoted students followed so closely behind him that the dust of his walking settled on them. They wore it like a badge. This Monday series is not commentary on Jesus. Not a system built from his teaching. Just the practice of following closely enough to be surprised by what we see.

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C. S. Lewis said the story of his life was being “surprised by joy.” I’m discovering the story of mine is being surprised by Jesus, a head-turning surprise at each turn of the page of his story.

Jesus prays, but he never turns his way of praying into a mark of belonging to him. Prayer is clearly his lifeblood, and others are intrigued by how he prays — yet he never leverages that into a crusade. I keep expecting him to stop and say, this is how my people pray. He never does. Instead, he simply invites people to live their lives with him, trusting that as they abide, they will find themselves praying.

Jesus reads scripture, but he never turns scripture into a standard for following him. His stories and ideas are soaked in it, yet he never makes his way of reading a brand. I keep expecting him to draw a line — here is the correct way to handle the text. He never draws it. Instead, he invites people to live their lives with him, trusting that as they abide, they will find themselves inside the story.

Jesus has compassion for those carrying heavy burdens, but he never turns that compassion into a credential of discipleship. He walks slowly, notices much, and often stops to do something about what he sees, yet he never galvanizes it into a movement. I keep expecting him to hand someone a sign, recruit them to a cause. He never does. Instead, he invites people to live their lives with him, trusting that as they abide, they will begin to see suffering and learn to do something about it.

And then there is the question of politics. Jesus has strong convictions about the factions vying for supremacy, religious and political alike. He welcomes zealots and collaborators, the religiously rigid and those who have walked away from religion altogether. In a world drowning in competing loyalties, I keep expecting him to finally stake his claim, to identify his tribe. He never does. Instead, he invites people to live their lives with him, trusting that as they abide, their capacity to commune with those who differ from them will deepen.

I’ve spent forty years watching the church turn each of these things into a flag. Pray like us. Read scripture like us. Care about the right causes. Vote the right way. I understand the impulse. Methods matter, and we all live inside some tradition. But somewhere along the way the method became the point, and we ended up with people who pray without following Jesus, who carry the brand without knowing the one whose name is on it. The weariness of that is real. I’ve felt it. Many of you have too.

Which is why I keep coming back to the one thing Jesus actually seems to want to build.

Not a prayer method. Not a hermeneutic. Not a social movement or a political coalition. Something older and quieter and more demanding than any of those. He calls it abiding. Abide in me as I abide in you. Stay. Remain. Make your home here. He says it to a small group of ordinary people the night before everything falls apart, and he says it like it’s the whole curriculum.

I’m finding his way surprising, life-giving, and strangely uplifting. Not once does he turn aside toward something smaller. Not once does he turn someone away because they pray differently, ignore scripture, avoid the suffering, or vote differently than he does. To one and all, he holds out the same invitation — the only one he ever really offers:

Come. Be with me.

He knows this is the everything. He calls it abiding. And everything else, it turns out, is too small.

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In His Grip

— Gene

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